Again with his damned self-assurance.
“She doesn’t need you.” Ilan had a marrow-deep understanding of what it was to yearn for a miracle, but this Izir would be a sorry place for her to put her faith. “You have every right to be here”—it pained to concede even that point— “but not even your holy blood gives you the right to force her to speak to you.”
Something flashed in the other man’s eyes. “A little late for the church to be talking about rights, don’t you think?”
Genuine anger simmered through Ilan’s irritation. “Says the heretic.”
The Izir bent close, warm lips brushing Ilan’s ear, and Ilan’s hand tightened on the hilt of his cane, eager to draw the blade inside. The Church frowned on carrying weapons that were too obvious in the city; he’d managed a compromise by which he simply didn’t tell anyone what he carried on his person and they didn’t ask. “Says the one who wanted to have me killed.”
Confusion warred with violent instinct, and for a panicked second he feared the Izir could read minds. “You’re deluded.”
The other man turned his head slightly, dark mirth in his eyes. “Feigning shock is almost a lie, Inquisitor. She came to me on your orders, didn’t she? You baited a trap with a pretty thing and poison. I always thought your methods were more straightforward than that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Ilan slid the blade out of the cane and let it rest at his side. He couldn’t strike the Izir, but he was going to make quite sure the consecrated ground wasn’t sullied with so much as one of his footsteps while he made such accusations.
“Really?” the Izir laughed, still close enough for his breath to warm Ilan’s skin. “Then the Church thinks very little of you.”
Ilan’s lip curled, not letting the doubt seep through. The Izir couldn’t have known exactly which nerve he’d managed to strike. “If what you’re saying is true, you’re foolish to be here.” A smart grouse took a missed shot as a lucky lesson and quickly flew out of reach. It didn’t roost on the hunter’s stoop.
Mihály stepped back, looking over Ilan’s shoulder as if he could see through the stone and glass to whatever corner Csilla had tucked herself in. “She’s worth the risk. And what are you going to do to me in daylight? Are you that sure of yourself?”
The spectators stepped closer, straining to hear the conversation, waiting to see what their idol would do.
The church would lose these six no matter what he did, Ilan realized with a hardness in the pit of his stomach. They’d come to pray in brilliance, and would leave in the false light of heretical promises with gossip on their lips.
He waited for the Izir to push further, to give him a true excuse to strike. “I will not let you cross this courtyard until you’ve renounced your heresy and made a proper confession.” More words he’d have to bark, not allowed to bite. The Izir was right that should he decide to stride on in, there was nothing Ilan could do.
But the Izir paused, looking between Ilan and the spires, something calculating in his gaze.
“Fine,” he conceded. “I’m not in the mood to get stung today. She’ll come back to me.” He turned and locked gazes with Ilan. “And I’d stake my blessing that you’ll be the one that forces her to.” Then he leaned forward again, voice low and filled with sharpness like a scattering of broken glass. “Watch yourself, Inquisitor. If there’s one thing Asten hates more than heresy, it’s hypocrites. And don’t you have more dangerous things to catch than me?”
“You’re the only threat to the Church.”
But that wasn’t quite true. Murders were a threat to the people. If the dark markings were real, they were a bigger threat to the faith.
With blessed Arany behind him, the walls enclosing them, they couldn’t be real. That idea had been dismissed. Nothing in the Izir’s face gave away whether the secrets the bodies carried had leaked. He could only be referring to the fact of mortal deaths.
“I’m not a threat to you. I simply think about things differently.” Mihály drew back, voice still low. “But if you’d like me to be, I could certainly tell my followers what the Church tried. Now let us go in peace.” The sharp smugness in his face evaporated as he turned to his waiting followers, his smile again brilliant as he was embraced by their raised arms and grateful sighs.
The Church couldn’t compete with such direct intercession.
Ilan watched a moment longer, sweat on his back and breath shallow. Then turned and strode back to the church, bypassing the airy light of the worship hall and heading straight to the Prelate’s room.
The young attendant dozing outside startled as Ilan strode past, shoving open the door without knocking.
Abe was at his desk with an open copy of the writ before him and a letter in one liver-spotted hand, the translucent wax of the Incarnate’s seal crumbling on the edges of the paper. The Prelate tilted his head in admonishment, but Ilan spoke before he could be scolded. “The Izir was at the gates. He was looking for Csilla. He implied that she tried to kill him.”
The staccato words sounded all the more ridiculous leaving his mouth. He’d once seen Csilla carrying a mouse in her skirts, protecting it from the cats, cats who took more of her dinner than she did with her worry over their care. Soul or no, she was a perfect reflection of steady mercy.
Abe paled.
Ilan’s heartbeat quickened. He’d seen that look of guilt on hundreds of faces, and it didn’t belong in his church.
“Thank you for telling me.” Abe pushed away from his desk and reached for his knife. The blade gleamed in the light thrown by the stained glass behind them, the halo of Blessed Imre consecrating the metal in pale yellow and milk white.
His reply was far from a denial of the accusation.
“Is there any truth to what the Izir was saying?”
Abe’s hand spread on the open letter as if performing benediction. “We have permission to root out evil in the city. It would solve one problem.”
“By sending a girl to kill...” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. There were already unholy deaths in the city. Adding a holy one to the body count didn’t seem helpful.
“She clearly didn’t.” The Prelate’s words dripped with blame. “Or perhaps there’s another explanation. We can be charitable.”
He didn’t sound like he intended to be. Ilan opened his mouth, but his words were stilled by Abe’s raised hand. “This was a direct order from the Incarnate, a way the girl’s flaw could be useful in protecting the faith. Are you going to argue?”
“Of course not.” The answer left his mouth automatically. Asten spoke directly to the Incarnate. If Ilan found it unsettling it was his own weakness, and one he’d do well to carve out at the first opportunity. “I only wish you’d told me.”
He could have set the whole thing to rights last night, taking up the holy charge where Csilla had failed if they’d trusted him. Old insecurities threatened to rise like sour bile. He would have succeeded. He would have enjoyed it.
The Prelate smiled with clamped teeth. “It was best we kept it quiet. But you can come and witness for us now.”
“What, you’re going to kill her, too?” He couldn’t picture Abe putting the blade to her throat, the blood spray of a slaughtered lamb painting the pearl white of his robes.
The older man swallowed, hesitation in his eyes. “No, there’s been no order for that. But if she refuses to serve, she can’t stay. We’ll take her tongue. Her hands, too, if you think she’d survive it.”
“She wouldn’t.” There was nothing righteous about mutilating a girl with no soul to save to cover a failure. But he wouldn’t stand against the faith’s judgment; if they wanted him to punish her, he would. The fact that they hadn’t asked him to take on the task in the first place only showed he still had more to prove. Those sworn to the faith were more than servants. They were tools, shaping the world into something Asten could love again. That was more important than any one life.
